Three years ago, when 30-year-old Bincy Shibu Thomas of Cochin went into labour at 2am, she was not rushed to the hospital. Instead, she called a midwife home. The midwife delivered her second child, a baby girl, in the comfort of her own bedroom, with her husband and two-year-old daughter by her side.

Birthing is a sacred process of delivering the child the mother has nurtured over nine months in her womb. Read along to know about this sacred journey the mother embarks upon and throw light on the various options available in these modern times for the birthing process and the support you can count on.

We've come a long way from delivering at home with the trusted 'dai' to raising eyebrows at the all too common C-section deliveries. A natural delivery, finds Gargi Gupta, can now mean anything from hpynobirthing to belly dancing..

Some things cannot be discussed in public. Very gender specific ones, particularly. But discuss, we must, even if a minuscule population in urban areas thinks it is a matter worth discussing: Like breastfeeding in public.

The concept of water babies is prevalent in the West but relatively new here. PREMA MANMADHAN learns all about it from the first delivery of this kind in the State.J aanvi is Kerala's first water baby.

When mums go to the hospital to deliver a baby, they know what to expect from a medical facility. Starched uniforms, aprons, disposable gloves, a monitoring machine, the intravenous drip bottle hanger and smell of the disinfectant spirit welcomes her to labour. But the recent launch of natural birth centres aimed at reducing medical interventions and checking the C-section rates in India, has seen a slight change in this scenario.

Dusk-tinted light filters in through the reed curtains covering the large windows of the birthing room. It casts long shadows on a large king-sized bed covered with a bright cotton bedspread. Multicoloured cushions are scattered across it and a small, ornate lamp on the adjacent table lends a warm glow to the wood-panelled walls of the room, giving it a homely, comforting aura.